


I had a dream, which was not all a dream

by BookFangirlMaryJane



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Character Death In Dream, Dark Thirteenth Doctor, Episode: s12e07 Can You Hear Me?, Gallifrey on fire, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Thasmin only if you squint, no one actually dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:41:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27068806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BookFangirlMaryJane/pseuds/BookFangirlMaryJane
Summary: The Doctor gets confronted with her worst nightmare.It's exactly what she feared.--o--Spoilers for all of series 12. You have been warned.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor & Yasmin Khan & Graham O'Brien & Ryan Sinclair, Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20





	I had a dream, which was not all a dream

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically a rewrite of the nightmare scene from 'Can You Hear Me?'.  
> I watched the episode a few times now and, although I really like the way they did it, I also felt like we were robbed of 13 being confronted with her worst nightmare(s). So I wrote something.
> 
> Disclaimer: All characters belong to the BBC (even if we all wish they wouldn't, but that's life, I guess).  
> The title is taken from Lord Byron's poem 'Darkness'. Yes, the one he quoted at the end of 'The Haunting of Villa Diodati'. No, that was entirely unplanned. I was just looking through some good poems to see if I could find a good title and then looked at 'Darkness' and the first line just. Fit. So I used it.
> 
> \--o--

Zellin gives the Doctor a nasty grin, his fingers separate from his hand, come shooting at her and –

“Who are you, Doc? I mean, really?” Graham asks and the Doctor turns to him, to them, to her fam, and gives them a smile. It stretches too far, pulls too wide, and she can see confusion and wariness bloom in their eyes, can hear it in their minds.

“I,” she says, voice light, “am the Doctor. I am a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, in the constellation of Kasterborous. I have many other names, too. Would you like to hear them?”

Yaz nods. Ryan looks uncertain. Graham frowns. “Sure, but can you also tell us more about your home? The name of some constellation doesn’t tell us much, cockle.”

The blonde smiles wider. It unsettles them further. “Of course, Graham. Why don’t we take a trip there now? I can tell you more about myself once we’re there.” She flicks a few switches and the TARDIS takes off. The console room’s lights have slowly shifted from happy, buzzing yellow into a deep blue, dark and unfamiliar. Dangerous.

They arrive with a groaning of the breaks and the Doctor strides over to the doors. “Come on, fam. Look upon my home.” One hand throws open the doors as she steps outside into the burning corpse of Gallifrey.

Behind her, the humans gasp in shock. They file out of the TARDIS, eyes wide and mouths agape in shock. “Doctor, what… what is this? What happened here?” Yaz asks, tears brimming in her eyes. The Doctor hums and twirls around, kicking up ashes. “That’s a good question. It was the Master, this time. But last time, it was me, and it was the Time War and I slaughtered my whole race, together with the Daleks. Genocide. Just. Like. That.” At the end, she turns around and smiles at them, all sharp teeth and no humor.

“What? No, you’re…” Yaz tries to deny her words instantly. Ryan stays quiet, only watching her. Graham is still busy staring at the burning planet. “They call me the Oncoming Storm. The Butcher of Skull Moon. The Predator. The Winner of the Time War. The Great Destruction of the Universe.”

Her smile gets wider the more names she rattles off. Her humans stare at her in horror, all three of them now. And then Ryan speaks up. “You’re a monster. How can you stand there and smile when you’ve killed so many people?”

Graham looks at her and the Doctor sees the pity in his eyes. She detests it immediately. “Oh cockle, you poor thing. Lost so much and you just keep on losing, aren’t you?”

The last step is, of course, Yaz. The girl is crying softly and shaking her head. “No! You can’t be like that! I love you, Doctor, but you can’t be a murderer. You just can’t. This isn’t you. This isn’t you, this can’t be who you are! I never would fall in love with something like you!”

“I want to go home,” Ryan says, arms crossed over his chest. Graham nods in agreement with his grandson. Yaz keeps crying but leans against her friends. They’re a united front against the monster that they once thought to be a friend. And the blonde just keeps smiling.

“Of course. I’ll take you home, Ryan. And you, Graham. Right home, to Grace.” Before any of them can react there’s a gun in her hand, one she recognizes as the one Ruth used, and she shoots the two men. Yaz cries out in shock and stumbles away from the ashes. Then she falls to her knees.

With gleaming eyes the Doctor steps over to her, not caring when her boots crush the ashes of her former companions. “Oh Yaz, don’t be scared. It’s alright! They wanted to go home but you see, I can’t just let you go home. You belong to me. If you really want to leave me then you will have to die. It’s simple, really, isn’t it? Are you going to leave, too? Little Yazmin Khan, my favorite pet right now. You’re a very good pet, you know?”

But the human isn’t comforted by her words, only sobs harder and scoots away from the approaching Time Lord. “G-get away from m-me! You k-killed them! You k-killed them just like t-that! I d-don’t want a-anything to do with you anymore! L-leave me alone!”

The smile slowly slips off her face. “Oh, so it’s like that. Well, Yaz, I guess this means goodbye.” And then she reaches out for the girl, dropping the gun in the process, and wraps her hands around that petite throat. Fearful wide eyes stare at her the whole time. It doesn’t take long for the human to stop struggling. And then it’s over.

The Doctor stands over the body of her friend, in the ashes of her fam, in the ruins of Gallifrey, and she smiles.

With a strangled gasp, the Doctor awakens.

For a very long moment, she’s not sure where she is, who she is, if she really just slaughtered her fam with a smile on her lips, on her burned down home planet. Then she blinks, realizes where she is and slumps into her bonds. Nightmare. It’s just a nightmare, induced by that creep Zellin. She hasn’t killed her fam. They’re here with her, asleep, battling their own fears.

The Doctor’s mind is reeling. She knows that her nightmares are horrible on good days. Sleep has been elusive for a while now, she’s been busy repairing things and distracting herself from it for ages. And the dream Zellin made her relive isn’t new. It’s as familiar as the feeling of losing a companion. She pretends that she doesn’t have them, those chilling nightmares.

But they’re still there. Those nightmares… It’s everything she fears, everything she knows will happen one day. Her fam will find out who she is and they will hate her for it. Or she will kill them.

Of course, she won’t be the one to pull the trigger but does it matter? She’s still the one who brings them here, to places so full of horrors and nightmares and deadly traps…

Killing them and getting them killed is the same thing, after all, isn’t it? Either way, they end up dead and her hearts end up shattered yet again. She’s lying to them, so many lies already. Maybe she should drop them off home once this is over and not come back. And… right, they’re still trapped on this nightmarish spaceship while Zellin and Rakaya raid Earth. She needs to stop them. After that she can worry about her fam.

Getting out of her handcuffs is child’s play.

Freeing her fam and the other humans is easy.

Thinking of a plan to trick the immortal lovers is simple.

Smiling is hard.

She can’t shake the nightmare. Her eyes avoid Yaz when the girl turns to her, avoid Ryan when she sees him talk to his friend, avoid Graham when he looks at her with those worried eyes. She can’t bear it, the sight of them. She’s afraid. Afraid of a nightmare.

Afraid that one day, it won’t be a nightmare anymore.

It will be real.

Her fam will be dead.

And it will be her fault.

** The End **

**Author's Note:**

> So. I really liked writing this, even if I may have misjudged the fam's characterization a little. They felt very flat. Uhh, it was just a dream and they were supposed to feel like it? Idk, I'm not that good at writing the fam, or at least it feels like it to me.
> 
> Huge thank you to river_of_words for giving me advice when I was contemplating whether to post or not post yet. It really helped. (Also a thank you in general, for being a great person and amazing writer.)


End file.
